Tepco Chief Rebuffed by Fukushima Leader for Second Time on Nuclear Anger

By Tsuyoshi Inajima and Michio Nakayama -
Apr 11, 2011

The head of Tokyo Electric Power
Co. was refused a meeting with the governor of Fukushima, where
the utility is battling radiation leaks from its atomic station
at the center of Japan’s worst civilian nuclear disaster.

Masataka Shimizu, president of the utility known as Tepco,
asked to meet Yuhei Sato while visiting the prefectural capital
today and was turned down, company spokesman Kazuo Yamanaka
said. The governor had declined a meeting on March 22.

One month after an earthquake and tsunami crippled the
Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear plant, Japan’s government extended
the evacuation zone after radiation levels rose in areas outside
the 20 kilometer radius. Tepco told workers at the station to
move to higher ground following a 7.1-magnitude temblor today.
Protesters marched in Tokyo yesterday as public anger over the
utility’s response to the crisis grows.

“Japan needs to investigate what happened and determine
what actions should be taken at other nuclear plants and explain
this to the Japanese people and the world,” said Tadashi
Narabayashi, a professor of nuclear engineering at Hokkaido
University. “That will help restore trust in nuclear power.”

Shimizu, 66, discharged from hospital last week following
treatment for hypertension due to the crisis, made his second
public appearance since the March 11 earthquake. he visited
Tepco’s offsite center for managing the Fukushima Dai-Ichi
station on his first trip to the city since an earthquake and
tsunami damaged the plant one month ago.

He briefly spoke to reporters in Fukushima city, about 240
kilometers (150 miles) north of Tokyo, and apologized again for
the nuclear crisis.

‘Around the Clock’

“We are working around the clock to bring the situation
under control,” Shimizu said, according to a Tepco statement.

Shimizu left his business card on the desk of Governor
Sato, who was out of the office when the Tepco chief called on
him, company spokesman Daisuke Hirose said.

A 7.1-magnitude earthquake hit Japan’s Tohoku region,
southwest of Iwaki, the United States Geological Survey said
today. A tsunami warning was issued for Ibaraki prefecture, with
a wave as high as 1 meter estimated to have already hit, public
broadcaster NHK said.

Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan will address the nation
later today, as the crisis enters its second month. More than 60
percent of voters disapprove of Kan’s handling of the nuclear
disaster, according to a Yomiuri newspaper poll published on
April 4.

The magnitude-9 earthquake on March 11, Japan’s strongest
on record, and tsunami left about 27,500 dead or missing,
according to Japan’s National Police Agency. The government has
estimated the damage at 25 trillion yen ($295 billion). Tepco
may face claims of as much as 11 trillion yen, according to one
estimate.

Sirens Wail

Sirens wailed across Japan and residents in cities and
towns along the devastated northeastern coast held a minutes
silence at 14:46 p.m., the time the quake struck last month.

Tepco is using emergency equipment to cool reactors damaged
at the atomic station after backup generators were knocked out
by the tsunami.

The utility is trying to remove highly contaminated water
that’s holding up efforts to get the cooling pumps working and
prevent further explosions after blasts damaged reactor
containment vessels, releasing radiation into the air and sea
and tainting food.

Steam, Nitrogen Leak

Radioactive steam and nitrogen is escaping from the
containment vessel at the No. 1 reactor and the company is
checking radiation levels around the reactor, spokeswoman Megumi
Iwashita said by phone today.

Tepco started injecting nitrogen into the vessel to reduce
the risk of a hydrogen explosion. The pressure inside the vessel
is rising more slowly than expected, indicating a leak, Iwashita
said. Work continues at the reactor and other parts of the
Fukushima Dai-Ichi power station, she said.

Earlier today, the company said a hydrogen explosion was
unlikely at the No. 1 unit.

“The situation is getting messier, especially at reactor
No. 1,” Lauri Myllyvirta, a campaigner for Greenpeace told
reporters in Tokyo today. “It seems likely that re-criticality
or chain reactions in the fuel are taking place in there. Water
isn’t going to be a solution for cooling the extra heat that
generates.”

The environment group urged the government to extend the
exclusion zone and said pregnant woman and children should be
evacuated from “high risk areas” in Fukushima city, which is
about 61 kilometers from the plant, and nearby Koriyama.

Cooling Reactors

Tepco has sought to cool reactors by dousing them with
millions of liters of water. The utility delayed discharging
water with low levels of radioactivity into the sea, Nakagawa
said today, holding up plans to transfer more contaminated
fluids from a trench at the station’s No. 2 reactor to a
condenser.

About 60,000 metric tons of contaminated water lies in the
basements of turbine buildings and trenches around the No. 1, 2
and 3 reactors, the company said last week. Tepco needs to drain
the water to restore reactor cooling systems in the turbine
buildings.

The tsunami rose to as high as 15 meters (49 feet) at the
station, Tepco said on April 9. The base of the station is about
10 meters above sea level.

“Most of the area around the reactor buildings and turbine
housings was swamped,” the utility said in a statement.

Tepco said on April 8 that the station, which has six
reactors and is about 220 kilometers north of Tokyo, wasn’t
further damaged by a magnitude-7.1 aftershock on April 7.